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Monday Mission: YOUR Top 3 Frugal Tips For Healthy Living

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Today’s Monday Mission is a bit of a flip on its head – rather than giving you a new task to complete or attempt in the kitchen, I’m asking you to branch out to help your own friends/community. I’m kind of excited about this mission, so bear with me as I explain what I’m thinking.

Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to be a rock star in someone else’s world today.

Someone on my personal Facebook page asked for my best tips to trim the budget. The gal who asked already does an amazing number of frugal tips, so I wasn’t sure how much she’d learn, but the question itself inspired me to think outside the box for this Monday Mission.

I want YOU to think about your own frugal journey, whether you’re at the beginning of learning budgeting (or reducing the budget for whatever reason), in the midst of the journey, or at a comfortable place but can still remember the leaner days.

Write out your TOP 3 frugal tips, especially if they have to do with the kitchen or fit within the natural living field – anything having to do with simple cleaners, reusing stuff, reducing your waste, etc. You might also share ways you make extra money since that achieves the same end as being frugal with what you already have.

I absolutely cannot wait to hear what you all come up with. If I’ve learned anything over the nearly many years I’ve been writing here at Kitchen Stewardship, it’s that my readers know wayyyyy more than I do. About just about everything.

If you’re not on Facebook, we’d love to hear from you in the comments here, and if you want to accept the “rock star” part of the mission, think of 3 people to email, post on Twitter, or share at a weekly Bible study or Mom’s group. You can blame it on me so you don’t feel weird.

What About My Top 3 Tips to Save Money?

I almost don’t want to share my top 3, because I don’t want to sway anyone’s thinking. I want your rock star tips to be 100% your own without my interference, so make sure you’ve done yours before you read any further.

Go on. Type them out.

Now go share them so you can’t edit based on what mine are.

Go ahead…

I’ll wait.

You can look at these pretty food pictures so you don’t see my three…

Done?

Ok then.

Now I’ll share mine, but if you’ve been around long enough here, you’ve heard me talk about them before.

1. Homemade Yogurt

I remain amazed at how much I save with this one little kitchen task! I’d never give it up!

A quart of organic Stonyfield yogurt is about $4 on sale here, and Greek yogurt is even crazier.

I make a quart of organic yogurt for $1.75.

And I make 4-5 quarts per week.

Assuming I couldn’t always find yogurt on sale, let’s say $5 is a fair price. That means I save between $13-16.25 every week. Who wouldn’t want a savings of around $650-845 every year?! That’s a lot of wiggle room in the food budget – enough to buy a quarter cow and save even more buckeroos.

Here’s my homemade yogurt tutorial with lots of pictures to make it totally simple. (Did I mention I only spend about 20 minutes a week making this? That means I “earn” over $40/hour making yogurt!)

If you don’t eat yogurt – you should! The healthy probiotics are second to none. If you do it right, a little frozen fruit and honey makes it taste like ice cream. Trust me. Get on this one.

2. Homemade Chicken Stock

Bones + Veggie Scraps + Water = Broth

It can’t get any cheaper than free, folks. Now that I’m actually saving ends of carrots, onions, and celery in the freezer and growing my own parsley in the summer, then freezing it too…AND reusing the bones a second and even third time…I am truly getting gallons of organic bone broth for the cost of my gas range and my time (and I suppose the huge stock pot I own).

Anything that takes garbage like chicken bones and vegetable scraps and turns it into not only food, but power-packed, nutrient-dense healthy and delicous food, is a frugal trick you must learn.

I haven’t priced organic broth in a long time, but I’m willing to bet that I’m saving $20-50 each time I make stock, PLUS having plentiful broth on hand encourages me to make and consume more soup, which is definitely healthier for my family (and usually less expensive than other types of recipes!).

Y’all. If you’re not making stock yet, resolve to start NOW. Here’s how.

3. Cooking with Dry Beans

This is sort of a cheater, really, because I’m hitting two birds with one stone.

Particularly in the real food, traditional foods, well-sourced world that I live in, meat is the most expensive thing we eat (and maybe cheese). That means that cutting down on meat here and there really helps the budget.

And if I’m cooking my own beans from the 25-pound bags of dry beans(found on Amazon) that I have in the basement, the savings is pretty huge. (You caught me – drat – that’s actually 3-in-1 here isn’t it? Cutting meat, using dry beans, AND buying in bulk. Sorry about that – I always ask if ice cream places can put two flavors in one dish, too.)

Soaking dry beans and cooking them slowly also knocks out some of the hard-to-digest parts of beans, increases their nutrition, and helps you avoid BPA-laden plastic linings in cans.

The Everything Beans Book has twenty pages of beany information, including all you could possibly want to know about legume nutrition, how to cook dry beans, and lots of time-saving tips for managing this frugal source of protein and fiber more often in your kitchen.

It also offers 30 bean recipes, for the bean lovers of the world and the bean haters.

More Ideas to Save Money in the Kitchen

Those are my “big three” ideas to save money in the kitchen, but I have a few more frugal tricks up my sleeve that I’d like to share with you.

Oats

I love some scrambled eggs for breakfast, and I know they’re much more nutrient-dense than grains, but you know what? $1.50 or more for breakfast for my family can’t hold a budgetary candle to $1.50 for 6-7 breakfasts of soaked oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon, and coconut oil.

So there.

I buy my oats in a 25-pound bag to get the bulk discount. If you can find a bulk purchasing option in your area, it’s WELL worth it.

Potatoes

This will be a controversial choice for sure, since some say the starch in white potatoes metabolizes just like sugar. Well, shucks. There’s also iron in the skins, some protein in there, a good opportunity to slather on the butter, and they’re one of my favorite foods.

Particularly if you’re grain-free, like we are right now, I don’t know how to do it without potatoes.

I like to find them on reduced produce for about 20 cents a pound. Definitely frugal, and I’m sticking to it.

Grains

Since we are currently eating grain-free to explore a gluten sensitivity issue, and grains certainly are harder to digest and take more time to prepare than some other foods, I’m not sure where I stand on other grains.

However, if you eat grains no matter what, of course grinding your own and baking homemade bread will save tons of money. You’ll definitely want to learn some skills with flour…but run a cost-analysis to make sure your time is worthwhile.

Before we were eating grain-free, for reasons other than frugality, namely health benefits and the ability to soak the flour, I chose to make my own homemade tortillas. But budget isn’t the driving factor there, but it still saved money over storebought tortillas.

Top 5 Expensive Foods

Consider this: cutting some expensive foods may be just as frugal as buying cheaper foods or eating less. Here are five foods that jack up your budget, some which you may not even think about when you sprinkle them over top a frugal casserole:

Cheese: This is a sneaky one for us – it’s so easy to serve cheese and crackers as a snack and pile on the cheese to make any meal more delicious. But remember that most cheese, even cheap stuff, is still $3-4 per pound, more than most meat. Be aware.

Meat: No kidding. Buying less expensive cuts of meat like stew meat and using a whole chicken for stock and stretcher meals like casseroles and soups is the best way to make sure you have meat, yet remain within your budget.

Eggs: A middler. High-quality eggs can cost 3x more than store eggs, which are a pretty frugal option, but as you saw on my splurge list, they’re worth it to me.

Sweeteners: honey, maple syrup: Rather than give in and buy white sugar all the time, just figure out how to use less. Even “good” sweeteners aren’t healthy for you in large amounts.

Dried fruit and nuts: Worth the price, but definitely something on which you want to watch for deals. I try to teach my family that nuts and things like power bars (dried fruit and nuts) from my Healthy Snacks to Go ebook will fill you up and last longer than a handful of potato chips, so eat them differently. Savor. Take smaller bites. Eat less. But we still go through a pound of crispy nuts awfully fast!

Fast, Frugal, Real Food Meals? (Or Even Just “Fast”)

When it comes to mealtime, it’s important to have a cost analysis of what each meal totals, too, so you can ensure you have some “frugal” meals in your menu plan each week. I shared my top five frugal meals, most of which can be put together in 30-60 minutes and/or made ahead and reheated.

However.

I was thinking of which meals can be made “with pantry staples” and just tossed together quickly, like if you walk in the door from vacation at 6:00 and you need something NOW. No pre-planning, no soaking, no cooking dry beans.

If you want to stick with a true traditional foods lifestyle, that’s a tough one.

Chicken broth isn’t in the pantry in a can; it’s in the freezer.

Beans aren’t in a can, either – they take 24 hours of pre-planning (unless you have them in the freezer, which could possibly make a quick meal).

Any grains in the pantry ought to be soaked overnight to reduce phytic acid, so that’s out entirely. The old quick spaghetti trick from my processed foods days isn’t an option either for a true real foods diet, especially gluten-free.

Nachos are the best I came up with – Cook up some frozen meat, thawing each half-centimeter in the pan while you go (or did you know you can cook ground beef from frozen in just a few minutes?!), season, and eat with the best store tortilla chips you can find (usually no trans fats, at least, which is better than I can say for store-bought tortillas). Maybe a can of beans with seasoning or refried beans without trans fat on the side.

Other Frugal Resources at KS

Back in 2011, a group of bloggers began an incredible series called Eat Well, Spend Less. The collaboration was in response to some serious rising food prices we were observing – and that trend hasn’t really stopped in the years since.

Here’s a post I wrote at the inception of the series listing out the foods I’m willing to splurge on, and where I can save money by settling or skipping and also listed ALL the best ways to save on the budget.

That post includes my best food savings tips and other areas to trim the budget.

If your interest is piqued, you can view the entire series right HERE.

Other Frugal Resources on the Web

One of my favorite bloggers who will teach you to get out of debt and stay that way is Stacy Myers of Stacy Makes Cents. Her first eBook, Crock On!, is truly one of my most-used cookbooks, and I’m ready to dig into her second book, Keep Crockin’, hot off the presses!

Another eBook perfect for this subject is Stephanie Langford’s Real Food on a Real Budget, a massive tome covering just about every way you can save money on real food that exists.

I’m pretty excited to see where this “sharing” mission goes and what ideas you all come up with – leave them here in the comments or tag my Facebook page.

What are your top three frugal tips to save money on the real food budget? Share them with us in the comments so we’ll all be inspired!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from which I will earn a commission. See my full disclosure statement here.

Need More Baby Steps?

Here at Kitchen Stewardship, we’ve always been all about the baby steps. But if you’re just starting your real food and natural living journey, sifting through all that we’ve shared here over the years can be totally overwhelming.

That’s why we took the best 10 rookie “Monday Missions” that used to post once a week and made a printable checklist so you can track your progress.

Sign up to get the checklist and weekly challenges and teaching on key topics like meal planning, homemade foods that save the budget (and don’t take too much time), what to cut out of your pantry, and more.

About Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship

I’m a Catholic wife and mother of four who wants the best of nutrition and living for her family. I believe that God calls us to be good stewards of all His gifts as we work to feed our families: time, finances, the good green earth, and of course, our healthy bodies. I'm the founder and boss lady here at Kitchen Stewardship -- welcome aboard!

31 Bites of Conversation So Far

About 6 years ago while we were living in California I read about how terrible fabric softeners are. So I began a quest to find an alternative. I found a tutorial on how to make wool dryer balls. You have to make them with something that is at least 85% or more wool. I went to Goodwill and found 2 extra large mens 100% wool sweaters. You need to have at least 10-12 balls I followed the directions on the tutorial and it took me only about an hour to make all 12 of them. We calculated a savings of $500.00 the first year on just not buying fabric softener! That didn’t even include the awesome energy savings considering by using these dryer balls we cut the drying time by 30-40% on every load of clothes we dry!!!! I am so enjoying your blog and would love if you get a chance to stop by my blog ecofriendlyhomemaking.com I am having a giveaway of all natural organic chemical free skincare products.

I made some dryer balls from a thrift store sweater but I don’ t find them to be all that effective. They seem to work in the summer when it’s raining and I can’t use the clothesline; but since winter, I’ve had to go back to fabric softener. Even vinegar in the dispenser just leaves a static-y mess.

Maybe my house is drier than average since we have a wood stove?? I did learn that certain nylon/knit and blend items just can’t go in the dryer and come out static free.

I make both! We use kefir for smoothies and yogurt to eat with granola and use in baking. Kefir is easier since the milk doesn’t have to be heated and cooled . . . just add the grains to your milk and wait until the milk is set to a soft jelly-like consistency. Time depends on temperature; it takes longer in the winter than it does in the summer. I understand that the number of pro-biotics in kefir is higher and more varied. Don’t know about cheaper, though, since cost of milk is the same. If you mean water kefir, that would be cheaper since your cost is just the sugar to feed the grains, but it is not really comparable to yogurt as far as how you eat/use it. We make that too so that the kids can have a “fun” drink in addition to water.

Anny, I do make water kefir and haven’t ventured into milk kefir, partly because I don’t think we’d drink it and partly because we love the yogurt so much! I do have one countertop yogurt starter that is just pour-mix-let sit, so that’s actually really, really simple, just like kefir. It’s my fifth jar each week. But yes, I think you’re right, dairy kefir has more probiotic strains than yogurt. I guess I really should give it a try! 🙂 Katie

Awwww…super fun! I should get into dairy kefir; it would be great for smoothies. I wonder if my kids actually would like to drink it – I suppose it would be a super easy way to increase their probiotics. Hmmm….Thanks! 🙂 Katie

Love this idea! I thought long and hard about my top three and was excited to see that they all have to do with frugality and community. I didn’t plan it that way. 1. Bartering! It’s amazing what you can gain from making extra loaves of bread, batches of cookies, salves, cleaning supplies, etc. We bartered for almost all of our Christmas presents for our family this year and are planning on bartering for the kids’ birthday presents and even some of our spring vegetables as well as mushrooms. So much fun! 2. Clothing Swaps! I like to plan nights where Mama’s get a break from the family, bring clothing and even household items that their family no longer use, and everyone gets to take home goodies for free. Sometimes we go ahead and turn it into a tea party or a finger food pot luck. All of the extras get donated to our local woman’s shelter or St. Vincent’s. 3. Potluck Get Togethers! These work for birthdays, holidays, or just excuses to have fun. It cuts down on the stress of planning as well as the financial cost. Not to mention you get to taste other people’s food and swap recipes. These are a favorite around our place and most of our friends and family ask what they should bring over to our place without us even asking them to bring anything!

Essential Oils! I make all of my household cleaners with them. I just made a vinegar, water, clove oil mixture and sprayed on some curtains I was given. They had a slight musty smell…but now it is gone! We also use a water/tea tree oil mixture to spray on our hair to deter head lice…it has been a bad year for lice in the school where I work and my children go!

I also make my EO cleaners in plastic and agree – they are diluted, so it should be fine. In addition, it is mainly the citrus oils that break down petrochemicals (plastics, for example), but I’ve not had any trouble even when using lemon because of the dilution. And I’d rather face the possibility of replacing a plastic spray bottle at some point than the inevitability of the kids breaking a glass container while cleaning the bathroom!

Perfect timing! One of my New Year’s resolutions is to make more food for meals. I have four growing boys and I never want them to feel like they can’t eat as much as they need to. So I need to be thinking of ways to make this more feasible on my budget.

1. Azure Standard/buying in bulk: This has seriously allowed us to eat much higher quality of food for nearly the same price as shopping at Aldi. Plus it keeps me from having to shop as often, which keeps me out of the store and helps me save more money.

2. Making and using tallow. Pastured butter is pretty pricey (even through Azure), but pastured suet is very cheap. I can make tallow for about 1/3 of the cost of butter. I substitute it for half of the butter in almost all my recipes. And it’s almost exclusively my sauteing oil.

3. Foraging/Sharecropping. We’ve picked raspberries in a nearby park and I’m hoping to learn more about foraging. We’ve also picked apples and pears for friends and friends of friends. We keep the fruit we pick, but I try to send them a jar of jam, sauce or a pie as thanks. Usually they’ve just been glad that it’s not going to waste or gumming up their lawnmower. This keeps us supplied in jam and saves us from having to buy as much fruit.

This has been good to think about – what do I do and does it really save money . . . (and you already mentioned the 3-5 biggest ones!)

1) Homemade staples – SOAKED GRANOLA (on top of homemade yogurt and a little fruit-or not, this can be breakfast, snack or lunch as needed!), SOURDOUGH BREAD and SUNFLOWER BUTTER

2) Packing lunches and snacks – for my husband daily and for the kids and myself when out on a field trip or doing errands

3) “Sunday Supper Snack” – for Sunday evening meal we have snacks (and its my middle child’s favorite meal of the week!); this usually means popcorn, apples and cheese or PB and kefir smoothies. Sometimes we vary it by having simple nachos (just chips with melted cheese) or chips and veggies with homemade hummus in place of the popcorn. If someone really needs more filling up they can scramble an egg or have a PB & J sandwich.

And don’t forget the little things . . . – saving bread crumbs – using cloth napkins – re-using plastic grocery bags as trash can liners – cooking extra rice, potatoes and beans to use in a later meal or freeze . . . they may not seem like much each time you do them, but over time they can add up financially. It also helps me maintain an attitude of not being wasteful.

This is a great question and I can’t wait to read everyone’s answers. My number one thing for saving money is reading lots of different blogs and websites and Pinterest pages from many frugal moms and adopting some of their ideas. I have made many changes a little at a time through the last two years and have saved tons of money. My next best idea is that my sister-in-law and I trade dinners each week. We each cook two dinners and trade. We then eat leftovers or freezer meals for the rest of the week. We both have small families and it has been a huge blessing. We talk over the weekend and plan our menus so they compliment each other and then cook and trade. It is great only having to think about two meals. The third thing that I do is make all my own household cleaners, laundry soap, cloth napkins, handkerchiefs and dish cloths and rags. I don’t even think about the paper and cleaning products because homemade works so well and are pennies to make.

This is such a fun idea. I posted on my fb page but it didn’t tag your page and I guess I can’t edit the post…bummer. But here’s my 3… 1. Learn to be content with what you already have. 2. Learn to cook from scratch – and unlike the teenage boy I saw in the grocery store yesterday, I don’t think opening a box of Jif Cornbread mix and adding milk and eggs is cooking from scratch. 3. Grow as much of your own produce as you can.

1. Baking my own sourdough bread. Last time I did the math, it was less than 75 cents in ingredients for a 1 lb loaf. The closest equivalent in quality I’ve seen in town runs about $5.

2. Gleaning/foraging. There are mulberry trees all over town and what can be better than free fruit? Also a pear tree at a vacant house down the street and a crab apple tree the homeowner is just too happy to have someone else deal with. Walnuts too, but they’re a heck of a lot of work.

Not in any particular order, but here are 3 things that save us money:

1. Meal planning (and thinking ahead). That way, if I am in the think-ahead mentality, I can soak my grains and beans the day before, etc… I shop every 2 weeks for groceries, which saves on gas and time.

2. Buying raw milk direct from a working farm. Not organic, but it’s from grass or hay fed cows and only $3 a gallon (we only make the drive every 2 weeks to save on gas since they are 45 min away).

3. We clothing shop primarily at Goodwill (particularly for the kids) and usually you can find decent stuff. If I want something really nice, we go to a more upscale kid’s consignment shop. Clothes and shoes cost a lot of money!

A few other things we do that save money and/or to be healthier: Make our own yogurt and kefir, buy some of our food in bulk from a food distribution company or bulk store, cook from scratch, clean mostly with vinegar and baking soda, and make my own meat stocks.

I wanted to add, about the kefir, it is super easy to do! I have heard that has a more comprehensive list of good bacteria present in it even than yogurt! My kids love it blended up with frozen blueberries or bananas in the morning. We make ours with raw milk, and you literally just pour the milk over the starter grains in the jar and let it sit at room temperature for a couple of days until thickened. Much easier than making yogurt (which I also make). 🙂

Has anyone tried making cottage cheese? My hubby LOVES cottage cheese and when trying to keep his weight up likes to snack on it now and then. It’s a little pricey at the store and I wouldn’t imagine it would be too much more difficult than yogurt or paneer.

My husband’s family runs a dairy farm, so we get unlimited free milk. Hence, I make everything dairy for our home–butter, yogurt, greek yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream, kefir, ice cream, cheese, and yes, cottage cheese. It was actually super simple and I may have happy-freaked-out when it turned out just like the real thing. Do you want me to post the recipe here, email you, or I could make it the next post on my blog…I would be MORE than happy to have to make another batch so as to finetune it 🙂

Alright Angie, here it is. 1 gallon milk (whole and raw is best) 1/4 t liquid rennet 2 T water 1/4 c cultured buttermilk 1-2 t salt cream Heat the milk on low until it reaches 95 degrees. Dissolve the rennet in the water before stirring into the milk for 30 seconds. Stir in the buttermilk. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand 30-60 minutes or until “solid” curds form. Cut curds into 1-inch chunks, then heat over low to 110 degrees, stirring gently to bring the curds from the bottom to the top (stir constantly for the first 5 minutes, then once every 5 minutes until 110). Pour the curds into a cheesecloth-lined colander and let it drain for a few minutes. Gather together the edges of the cheesecloth and rinse the cheese while squeezing it. Squeeze dry, then transfer to a bowl. Add salt to taste, and then a little bit of cream to get that cottage-cheesy effect. Ta-da!!! Then EAT. Remember that although the cheese itself is now cultured, the cottage cheese will stay good only as long as the cream stays fresh. But it’s usually not a problem to get it eaten in time 🙂

Please remember that I’m just a gal who reads a lot and spends way too much time in her kitchen. I’m not a doctor, nurse, scientist, or even a real chef, and certainly the FDA hasn't evaluated anything on this blog. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please talk to your health professional (or at least your spouse) before doing anything you might think is questionable. Trust your own judgment…I can’t be liable for problems that occur from bad decisions you make based on content found here.

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